Emotional Breakdowns

We've all seen the stereotypical pregnancy-hormone-induced dramatic episodes depicted in Hollywood or on television.  The kind where a woman hears a sad song on the radio and bursts into tears, or screams at her husband for buying the wrong kind of potato chips to feed her midnight craving. Up until now, they made me laugh.  They made me think, "No one is that crazy.  Surely I would never be so irrational." Oh, how I stand corrected.

The Beginning:

It started when my nausea was in full swing (which is over now, thank God!) and I could hardly look at any food without wanting to run to the nearest bathroom. Every evening, my loving husband would come home and say hesitantly, "what do you want to eat?  We'll go wherever you want."  One day, I just knew I wanted a muffaleta from Jason's Deli. But alas, when we arrived I looked around at the people eating their sandwiches and read the descriptions on the menu and could think of nothing I wanted more than to yarf on every plate in the restaurant.  Drew must have seen this on my face because he quickly said, "We don't have to stay, we haven't ordered yet." 

I nodded and hung my head and we exited the premises.  As soon as we got into the car in the parking lot, I let loose.  For some reason it was a matter of pride for me to be able to stuff down the muffaletta  I had decided upon earlier, but I had failed. I cried until I started laughing at the ridiculousness of crying over a sandwich. This just further confused poor Drew, who was sitting in the driver's seat struggling for a solution and began to grasp at straws. "Are we sad? Happy? Is this funny? Should I be crying or laughing? I'll take you wherever you want to go."

When my brief moment of insanity stopped, we went to KFC where I ate a side of mashed potatoes and a side of mac and cheese.  It was delicious.

At the time, I was hoping that was it.  I'd gotten all of my emotional mess out in one embarrassing episode and from then on it would be smooth sailing.  But two weeks later, I really one-upped myself.

The Beginning of the End:

I should've seen it coming that Wednesday morning as I drove to work, scanning for a song on the radio.  I couldn't find anything I liked so I let a country song play out. The chorus mentioned "Tupelo honey," and made me recall a news story I did in Florida with a beekeeper who made Tupelo honey. All of the sudden I realized there were tears in my eyes.  "That was weird," I thought, and I walked into the office.

Later that day, I was tasked with finding a conference room for some visiting producers.  Seems like a pretty ordinary, menial task, right?  Wrong.  At the time, it was daunting and overwhelming.  There are so many conference rooms to choose from! I needed to find one that's big!  And Dark! That's when I felt the transformation happening.  Angry and frustrated, my body began to expand. My muscles bulged and my veins popped out.  My skin darkened into a murky shade of green.  I ripped off my shirt, and stormed down the hallway.  I believe someone snapped a photo of the creature I'd become: 

Okay, maybe it wasn't that dramatic, but it sure felt like it. As I ran to a co-worker to ask for help, she could sense the irrational level of stress rising in me.  We checked out a conference room together and she was walking me back to my office (which I share with 2 other people) as I started to return to my natural state, and as we entered the room she said, "you know, I think you might be having one of those pregnancy hormonal moments."  Then, she made the mistake of hugging me.  When I'm upset, a hug is like gasoline on a fire. Her nice gesture resulted in the most embarrassing and involuntary verbal explosion I've ever uttered in public: 

 "My uterus is the size of a grapefruit and I threw up in the shower this morning... FOR THE THIRD TIME!" 

Then came the tears.  Luckily, my coworkers are all my friends and they responded with a resounding, "awww," each one offering either a piece of food or a tissue.  The flood gates had opened. I spent my lunch break crying into a bowl of pasta for a half hour for absolutely no reason.  I gave my husband permission to have me committed for the next 6 months.

That bad day got worse when my car broke down a couple of hours later. Remarkably, a co-worker who had earlier witnessed the Bruce Banner to Incredible Hulk transformation came to my rescue immediately.  Perhaps it was out of fear that the beast would unleash again and take down the entire city of Phoenix. 

Aside from getting into her car and immediately chugging the rest of her bottle of water instead of my own by accident, I handled the car trouble pretty well, with minimal tears.  I guess the situation just didn't seem as dire as eating a bowl of pasta.

The End... or most likely to be continued

When I got home from work, I googled "public pregnancy breakdowns" just to see if anyone else's story could make me feel a little more sane or at least give my misery and embarrassment the company it deserved.  I got the biggest laugh from a story about a woman whose husband said hello to a waitress in a restaurant and she responded by throwing a plate of cheese and storming out, leaving him to pay.

What I find most interesting about any crying I've done lately (which I guess thankfully has only been on a few occasions,) is that even at the time I know it's irrational, but I just can't stop.  Drew has shown incredible patience during this time, and I appreciate that he didn't take me up on my offer to be committed.

While I hope that the episodes described in this blog are the only breakdowns I will have worth mentioning, I know I've still got at least  6 months of hormonal racquetball happening in my body, so that may not be the case.

So please, keep an understanding mind if you see me throwing cheese.